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Friday, January 9, 2009

The Yes on 8 Campaign has filed a federal class action law suit against California challenging the Constitutionality of its campaign finance laws. These laws require personal information of campaign donors to be disclosed, and it is these donors who claim they are now victims of threats and harassment.

"This harassment is made possible because of California's unconstitutional campaign finance disclosure rules," said Ron Prentice, Chairman of the Yes on 8 Campaign. The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, includes examples of threatening emails, phone calls, post cards and even death threats.

One such email stated in the lawsuit sent to "John Doe #4" reads,“hello propagators & litagators [sic] burn in hell” and another that read "congratulations. for your support of prop 8, you have won our tampon of the year award.”

Another read “Consider yourself lucky. If I had a gun I would have gunned you down along with each and every other supporter. . . . I’ve also got a little surprise for Pasor [sic] Franklin and his congregation of lowlife’s [sic] in the coming future. . . . He will be meeting his maker sooner than expected. . . . If you thought 9/11 was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Not that I support any such threats, but where was the indignation when we were harassed for our orientation, our businesses boycotted for who we were, our lives not only threatened but actually taken away for being a part of the LGBT community? This lawsuit is a smack in the face to us when numerous gay and lesbians have been victims of hate crimes, some actually killed, spurred on since the passing of Prop 8, simply for who they were, not for being political, while the Yes on 8 campaign is complaining that they're getting badly spelled (with suspicious authenticity) e-mails by obvious whack jobs threatening them for stepping into the political foray. (see a blog in support of the lawsuit)

The horror of this is that we, the LGBT community, are so used to hearing about hate crimes against us that we don't react as strongly as the Yes on 8 campaign to a few threats against them. Are we as a community that hardened that we just shrug our shoulders when one of our own is killed, beaten, raped? Our hearts went out to "Richmond's Jane Doe", but honestly, that was a rare show of solidarity for one of our own.

This law suit reeks of hypocrisy, a smell our noses have gotten so used to that our leaders probably won't bother to respond, much like the NoMobeVeto.org ad debacle. The Yes on 8 supporters give a forced, petty cry from a small scratch in a fray, claiming the rules of politics are unfair (even when they've won), while we, the LGBT community, barely react when we're stabbed, repeatedly now, for hundreds of years and more. But worse, we have been lulled into an indifference because society has a whole has allowed our plight to continue as acceptable, since after all, we a marginalized minority.

So why aren't we allowed to file our own class action lawsuit against our country, claiming hundreds of years of discrimination, threats, murders and harassment? If that sounds ridiculous, then the Yes on 8 Campaign is that much more unbelievable.

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"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

- Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and one of the most influential Founding Fathers.